Hunt
by kingszey
Summary: "And as the sun kept sinking towards the hills, the rain kept pattering on the leaves, the stream kept running swiftly and the birds kept singing, it was almost as if the very last pieces of Hollyleaf's soul followed Ashfur into the freezing water." One-shot


**Hi :3 this is just a one-shot I wrote in the early hours of the morning, so please bear with me! Oh, and I'm terribly sorry about the cover art, I'm not much of an artist. Please review! :)**

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Hollyleaf had always been a hunter.

And as she stalked through a familiar forest under unfamiliar circumstances, she told herself that, really, there was no difference between those hunting parties and this one.

Her eyes stayed fixed on the quivering grey hairs on the pelt of the cat she was following. He slid between trees, his nose and tail in the air. There was no way he knew he was being followed – surely he would be so obvious, arrogant, if he knew that Hollyleaf, with death on her mind, had followed his pawsteps since he left the camp.

At last, hunter and hunted came to the tree line by the WindClan border. Hollyleaf crouched in the swaying bushes as her prey settled himself into the grass by the stream, looking into the clam waters. She cocked her head to the side, confused. She had assumed he was out hunting, but it seemed he had simply come all that way to stare at water.

And then she heard something. A sigh has escaped the tom's mouth, and was carried to her waiting ears on the gentle breeze. And then he spoke.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice you?" Ashfur asked, not looking away from the stream. "Yes, you, Hollyleaf."

The she-cat startled, then straightened up and wriggled from the bushes. She walked slowly forward until she could sit down beside him. She looked into the water and stared at the reflection of his dark blue eyes wavering on the surface.

"I thought you hadn't noticed me," Hollyleaf replied, feeling stung in spite of herself.

Ashfur's reflection smirked up at her. "Don't flatter yourself."

Hollyleaf did what she had been excelling at since a young age – she steered the conversation away from her flaws. "You know what I came here to do, then?"

Ashfur's tail twitched over the rough grass. "I can make a good guess."

Was it just her, or did Ashfur look especially small as he hunched his shoulders? "Let's hear it then."

"You're here to kill me. You don't want your blood to be more tainted than cats already know it is. You're going to make me simply vanish. No mess. No more trouble."

"Not bad." Hollyleaf replied. "Why doesn't that scare you?"

Ashfur tore his gaze from the water and looked directly into her eyes. "I know I have made mistakes. I know I have hurt many cats. Believe me, Hollyleaf, I am well aware of what a screw-up I've become. I am living for nothing, so I wouldn't mind dying for nothing."

"What do you mean, living for nothing?"

Ashfur sighed, as if the whole idea of talking about his imminent and inescapable death were some tedious chore. "You've never been in love, have you? I can tell you haven't."

"You don't know that!" Hollyleaf protested, her fur bristling defensively.

Ashfur narrowed his eyes. "And who should be so lucky to be the object of your affection, hmm?" he asked mockingly.

Hollyleaf opened her mouth, closed it again, then repeated the action several times. Truthfully, she could not remember loving anyone except for her family. She'd never even had an apprenticehood crush. In fact, love seemed like a very strange concept to which she could not fathom a definition. For that reason she had torn Lionblaze away from that sickly sweet WindClan cat – the idea of being so intimate with someone until they knew everything about you unnerved her. _What's a cat without her secrets?_

Ashfur's eyes glowed triumphantly. "I figured as much."

She glowered at him. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I think you'll find it hard to understand me until you have experienced heartbreak firsthand. However, I shall explain, and I'm sure you'll do your best to make sense of it." Ashfur turned his head away to glance over the moors. "You see, I loved Squirrelflight so much that I almost hated her. I hated her for making me so vulnerable, for my happiness relied on her. If she was with me, I felt on top of the world, like I could do anything. But when she wasn't, I fell into spiralling despair. She never had any idea of this, of course, because around her I was always happy.

"But then the badgers attacked, and Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight magically forgot their fights. Suddenly, whenever I was with her I was filled with murderous rage, and when I was away from her I was miserable. She ruined me, Hollyleaf. You have no idea. All I want to do now is ruin her. Get revenge. But in a way, I know that it won't help. Because maybe, deep down, there's a part of me that's still in love with her. And that's why I wouldn't mind dying. I can't kill the part of me that loves her, so dying is the only way out."

Hollyleaf said nothing, just studied the grey warriors profile. The first drops of rain started falling around them, but neither made any move for shelter.

"I had no idea," Hollyleaf said, so softly that her voice was almost lost in the rain. "I had no idea that it could hurt so much."

Ashfur shook the droplets off his whiskers. "And that's why I'd thank you to hurry up and kill me."

_Oh right. That._ Hollyleaf conscience prickled uncomfortably. "It mightn't be as easy as I thought. You've made it a whole lot more personal."

"I'm so sorry." Ashfur rolled his eyes, then narrowed them. "You're saying that before, you would have had no problem with killing me?"

She shrugged, refusing to meet his gaze. "I- well, let's face it Ashfur. We don't like eachother."

He studied her, his head tipped to the side. "I suppose not," he said quietly.

They sat for a while, the air between them awkward but not tense – almost as if she had not come here to murder him in cold blood. Hollyleaf watched the sun sink lower in the sky, knowing that by the time it touched the hills of the moors, Ashfur would have to be dead.

The grey tom was the first to break the silence. "Hollyleaf, if it's not too much trouble, I have one question to ask you before you kill me."

"And what would that be?"

"What do you think the clan will say after I'm dead?" A hint of sadness entered his gaze.

Hollyleaf thought hard. "They'll say that you were a good and loyal warrior," she said carefully. "And that they loved you as a son, a brother, a denmate, an apprentice and a mentor. They will remember you the way you ought to remember you – brave and true."

He was quiet for a long time. "And you say we don't like eachother."

Hollyleaf scoffed softly. Truthfully, she had not meant to be so completely honest, but she figured she owed it to him for what she was about to do.

They both stood and Hollyleaf unsheathed her claws, hating the way her paws trembled. Ashfur merely stared at her, tailing drooping and head held high. His eyes were expectant and slightly sad – not as if he was upset over how easily he had given in, but as if he pitied her. As they maintained eye contact, Hollyleaf understood. He would not regret his death, but that he had made a warrior into a murderer.

She stepped back, her head hanging. "I can't do this," she muttered. "It's not right."

Ashfur took a step forward. "I tried to kill Firestar. I tried to kill you. I'm about to ruin your life at the gathering. Everything you have worked so hard for will count for nought. No one will trust you after they find out that your blood is more tainted than they could have imagined. The whole of ThunderClan will be shamed!"

Hollyleaf knew that he was just trying to wind her up, to provoke her into attacking him. And she didn't want it to work, but she couldn't deny that her blood had started boiling, that her claws were itching to sink into flesh. She looked up to face Ashfur again.

His eyes gleamed. "Remember how angry you've been at me over the past moon. How I've torn your family apart. You've always been so strong in your beliefs, but now you're questioning the very foundations of your existence. It's all my fault. _I deserve to die, Hollyleaf. It's up to you to make sure I do."_

With a cry that was not so much breaking as already broken, Hollyleaf leaped forward with her claws extended. As she landed on Ashfur and bowled him over, she put clamped her jaws around his neck. He wasn't fighting back or struggling, and that felt so _wrong _to her, as if she were fighting a kit. But she could not allow herself to dwell on that, for that would surely lead to her losing her nerve. She sank her teeth in and shook him hard.

She stayed that way for longer than was necessary, even though he was dead, she _knew _he was. She released his limp body with a gasp.

His body looked so small at her paws, blood matting the fur on his neck and his eyes closed peacefully. Hollyleaf gritted her teeth and blinked back the prickling sensation rising behind her eyes, using her nose to nudge him roughly into the stream. _He'll be carried out into the lake. No one will ever have to know what happened. I'm safe._

But the thing was, she didn't feel very safe. Instead, she felt strangely vulnerable, and the chill of the wind and rain seemed to have found its way through her skin and right down to her heart. She exhaled a deep, shaky breath and turned away.

And as the sun kept sinking towards the hills, the rain kept pattering on the leaves, the stream kept running swiftly and the birds kept singing, it was almost as if the very last pieces of Hollyleaf's soul followed Ashfur into the freezing water.


End file.
